Boxing clever comes to fruition
FRESH ideas with fresh fruit at an affordable price for Durban families. That’s the brainchild of businessman Colin Francke and Benjamin Constable, a New Zealand basketball player. The duo have just launched the Fresh Fruit project, which not only provides fruit for children from poorer areas around the city, but is also turning the traditional model of fund-raising on its head.
Constable, a member of the KwaZulu-Natal Marlins basketball team, left New Zealand to play in the US before joining Peace Players International (PPI) where he was assigned to South Africa.
PPI’s mission is to unite, educate and inspire young people through basketball.
While coaching at Carrington Primary School in Umbilo, Constable saw the desperate need for healthy food for children, especially those who came to school without having had breakfast.
“We cannot uplift with sport if a child is hungry.
“In June, we carried out a survey at the school looking at eating habits on school days, which found that 98 percent of the children did not eat healthily, with 31 percent reported not eating either breakfast or lunch. The most common food was bread.
“At the same time, local charities are no longer sustainable and the handout model no longer works. If people are going to give money, they need something in return.
“So we needed a sustainable solution,” said Constable.
He teamed up with Francke and the Fresh Box project was born. It offers boxes of fresh fruit in three sizes, starting from R49 for 3kg, which also pays for a similar box of fruit for a child in need.
“It is cheaper than retailers, and you can collect your box at one of our collection points every week. The box is catered to your taste, with your favourite fruits from our choice of about 25 seasonal fruits on our website. And, best of all, you are also providing fresh fruit to a child who really needs it,” said Francke.
“The future of business is a common profit model, which means encouraging a sense of caring among a community. The profit margin will be used to subsidise Fresh Box deliveries to at-risk communities.”
Constable added that while they had started with improved nutrition for pupils, they would like to expand to help pregnant mothers.
His partner, Jane Miller, a paediatrician, worked closely with them on the project .
According to their research, although South Africa is regarded as a “food-secure” nation, many people suffer from malnutrition and disease, such as stunting, wasting and anaemia. Children under the age of four are particularly vulnerable to nutritional disorders that impact learning capabilities and ultimately have longer-term social and economic consequences.
The head of department at Carrington, Pinky Pillay, said it had been working with the Fresh Box team since September to implement the project.
“They have really added an asset to our school and learners. This programme has not only given our learners access to healthy food, but also brought awareness to their eating habits. We know it’s an ambitious idea, but we really believe that next year the programme will grow to supply nutritious food to all 700 of our learners, most of whom have little to no access to healthy food,” said Pillay.
South Africa has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world: the World Bank estimates 55 percent of children belong to households living under the ultra-poverty line of R800 or less a month. This is an estimated 10 million children.
To order your fruit box, or for more information on the Fresh Box Project, go to www. freshbox.co.za